Support FAQ

ServerAssist can be installed on any current Windows operating system.

The publisher, web interface and the gateway require that the Internet Information Server role is added. Furthermore, the publisher and gateway require the ISAPI Extensions role service, and the web interface requires the Static Content, Default Document and ASP role services. The installation routines will add the necessary role and role services as required.

ServerAssist can also be used to monitor Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7 and Windows Vista. Despite the fact that these are not "server" operating systems, ServerAssist will install and provide full functionality on these platforms.

No. The load imposed by the central operations and management servers is minimal, and the whole ServerAssist system will happily co-exist with other applications on an existing server.

ServerAssist can monitor Windows servers, Linux systems, network applications and SNMP-manageable hardware.

ServerAssist Professional is licensed either on subscription basis, per server or with a single, enterprise-wide license.

ServerAssist Workgroup is licensed on a per-device basis. A device is a Windows server or any IP addressable device that supports SNMP.

See Licensing for more information. The licence agreement is available for review.

We typically release new versions every two or three months.

See the change history for details.

Provided that you have a current support and maintenance agreement, all updates are free.

The ISO image contains everything in the package, and also has some additional software.

It contains the data store manager, and some third-party software, such as Adobe Reader and SQL Server Management Studio.

The installation package is a self-extracting executable that usually extracts to a temporary directory and then automatically starts a front end installation manager, and this directory is automatically cleaned up when the front end exits.

If you run the installation package from a command prompt and pass in a /X parameter, the main installation front end does not run, but instead, the contents are extracted to a directory with the same name as the package, from where they can be copied as needed.

Run the installation package with a /? parameter to see all the command line options available.

The publisher can be installed on any system that supports Internet Information Services (IIS), and does not require any other ServerAssist components to be installed.

To install the publisher, run the packaged installation and select Individual Installations, then Extras and finally select Publisher. Any IIS configuration that is required will be carried out automatically by the installation. If the publisher is installed in an internet-facing configuration, it is recommended that strong passwords are set for all access types.

Once the publisher is installed, reports can be published to it either by modifiying the default publisher used by the operations server, or configuring an individual scheduled report to use the new publisher.

• To change the default publisher used by the operations server, select the properties of the main Scheduled Reports node in the console, and modify the settings as required.
• To use a specific publisher for a single report, select the properties of the report and on the Ouput tab, click Settings... and select a specific publisher.

To reset the Publisher's passwords, install the Tools on the web server running the Publisher. Once installed, run the Configurator and select the Publisher tab. From here, all passwords can be enabled, disabled or modified as required.

All serial numbers can be seen on the serial numbers page.

You can change your preferences at any time from the mail preferences page.

Also, every mailing we send out has an unsubscribe link at the bottom that you can use.

This is really just an export / import operation, and there’s three areas you need to work with: User customisations, monitoring configuration and data. There’s also a couple of caveats regarding ACLs.

On the old machine:

• User customisations: For every user who logs on to the main ServerAssist machine, they should start the console, right-click on the very top-level ServerAssist node, and select All tasks -> Export, and save their console configuration to a file. This only saves user-specific items in the console, such as user-defined polices and groups. Since the personalisations are per-user, this has to be done for each user who uses ServerAssist, not just once.
• Monitoring configuration: Stop all the ServerAssist services, and export the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Hazelnut\ServerAssist to a .reg file. Note that this reg file will contain, albeit encrypted, various administrative-level credentials, so should be suitably managed and deleted once the subsequent import is complete and the new system is up and running.
• Data: From within C:\ProgramData\Hazelnut\ServerAssist, backup the contents of the following folders: Data Store, MIB Catalogue, Publisher, Personalisation. Note that you will only have a Publisher folder if the Publisher is installed. You will only have a Personalisation folder if you selected a custom logo.

On the new machine:

• Run the standard packaged installation and then manually stop all the ServerAssist services.
• Import the .reg file that you exported from the old machine. If you installed the Publisher, do not delete the existing registry keys and values. The Publisher key has additional ACLs on it to allow the Publisher to store its configuration, and a delete prior to the import will remove those ACLs. An import into an existing key does not update the ACLs.
• Restore the data to the appropriate folders within C:\ProgramData\Hazelnut\ServerAssist. There will be files in all the folders already on the new system, but these will only be installation defaults and can be safely overwritten. When replacing the data, if you are using the Publisher, only copy the contents of the Publisher folder from the old system into the new – be careful not to delete the actual folder on the new system. This is because the installation has added some ACLs to that folder to allow access from IIS, and a delete / replace operation will remove those ACLs.
• Start all the ServerAssist services on the new machine (the order is not important), and then start the console. In Administration -> Settings -> External Servers, update the SMTP server settings if required. In Administration -> Active Responses -> Link Inclusion, on the Web Server tab, update the name used when processing active response links. This will need to be the name or IP of the new machine.
• If you have a separate machine running the Web Interface, on that machine, start the Configurator, and on the Web Interface tab, update the connection to the operations server as required.
• Each user should log on and re-import their specific console settings. If you have users who have just the console installed on their workstation and connect to the remote operations server, they will need to update their connection. Since the remote console is designed to operate in a limited fallback mode if the operations server is not reachable, the console will appear to be operational, but with read-only functionality. For those users, in their console, pick properties of the top-level ServerAssist node, and update the connection to the remote operations as required.